Ragnar 2011: Sweatin' to the 80s

On February 25-26 I ran the Ragnar Del Sol relay for the second year in a row. This year I was the team captain, so a lot more work went into it (but less training as I wasn't as new to running). To preface this account, my team is made up of 12 runners. Each is assigned a number. The Ragnar organizers assign 3 specific legs, or portions of the 197 mile race, to each runner number. Runners 1-6 travel in van 1; runners 7-12 travel in van 2. Here's a run down of the weekend.

Thursday night: decorate and load vans (thanks Wendy for making both of your vans available), eat lots of spaghetti, go to sleep later than planned.

Friday:
4:45am: Van 1 meets at my house. We leave a little late because one of the boys staying with me was expecting a wake up call and I didn't know that.
6:30 am: Check in at the start line in Wickenburg, AZ.
7:30am: Runner 1 starts as we cheer him on.

In our van each of our legs ranged from 4-9 miles. Once the runner got started, the rest of us would hop in the van cheering and ringing our cowbell each time we passed the runner. We would stop every 2-3 miles get out, cheer, and provide water if desired.

Our team name was Sweatin' to the 80s, and we all dressed up. This is one of our first "aid" stops of the race. During the first few legs of the race we also used our drive time to crimp our ponytails! :)

Here I am at one of our early stops. One of our team mates, Eric, did the vinyl for the van! Nice!

I was runner 4. My first leg was 6.5 miles. I think I had like a 10:15 pace which isn't terrible, but much slower than I was last fall when I was running regularly. Oh yeah, and when I wasn't about 3 months pregnant and running with a pretty bad cough.

Each runner in our van ran one leg before we handed off the "baton" (slap bracelet) to runner 7 who started van 2. While Van 2 ran, we drove to our next starting point, Surprise, AZ, and tried to get some rest. The inside sleep area wasn't open yet (the school it was at was still in session I think) so we got to sleep on the baseball fields. Between it being early afternoon, people being loud, and my pregnant self having to pee constantly, I didn't really get to sleep.

You can see some other teams were trying the same thing. This stop also had some booths with things like free Muscle Milk and free pb&j sandwiches (made by my awesome sister who volunteered even though she was on vacation). My step dad, Gary, also volunteered. THANK YOU! Each team has to provide 3 volunteers for a 6 hour shift in order to run the race and my family was so willing to help!

7:00ish pm: We started our second set of legs. It was really hard to find a place to pull over and give our first runner water, and at one of our attempted stops my cell phone fell out of the van without me realizing it. Again, my family totally came through. I remembered that Lisa and Dan had found her phone once through Sprint's family locator. I called Lisa and she signed me up for a trial of the service and located my phone. While I was running my awesome team hurried over to the bank parking lot where it fell out, retrieved it, and got back with the next runner maybe a minute before I reached the end of my leg (so she didn't get to warm up or anything, but she was super nice about it). This leg was 5.4 miles, uphill on gravel freeway shoulders, and at about 11:30pm. I like doing uphill at night because I can't see how steep or far the hills are. I also had a nice guy run the last mile or so with me, which made it go faster. Between staring at the gravel right in front of my feet with my little headlight, going uphill, and not worrying about pace because of the errand my van was on, I ended up with like a 12:30 ish pace. I've never recorded such a slow pace before...

The next major exchange where we passed the "baton" to Van 2 had great accommodations (meals and showers could be purchased and an indoor gym was available for sleeping), but we had to travel on to make sure we were at our next start point on time. We stopped at Denny's which ended up taking way too long and the pasta I got was disgusting! I ate most of it anyway because I was so desperate to have something besides the sandwiches, bagels, and snacks in my lunch box.

Our next start point had a dirt/rock lot outside for sleeping. I think we had about 3 hours before we had to start running again, so we quickly laid out our bags and went to sleep. Despite all the noise of the runners coming in and out, I actually was able to sleep pretty well. My friend Cindy, did not as she was paranoid about scorpions. Man am I glad she didn't mention that fear to me until it was time to get up!

We started running again Saturday at about 4:30 or 5:00 am. My third leg was only 4.2 miles and half of it was downhill. My coughing lungs weren't too happy with me for about the last mile, but I pulled off something like a 9:43 pace, if I remember correctly. We finished around 11am I think and then had time to kill until van 2 reached the finish line.

This is such an energetic race. Most teams, and my van for sure, are silly and crazy. We stopped every few miles for all of our runners to cheer and support. No one sleeps while we have runners out as we really make an effort to help each other along. We took an amazing number of pictures and videos, but they are all on my team mate's camera, so you'll be seeing even more documentation later.

For now, here are some finish line pictures that my sister was nice enough to take.

My family was so awesome in supporting me this year. My mom, Lisa and James, Mike, and Ethan all came to the finish line! Mom brought flowers and a balloon and bought me a Ragnar jacket and shirt at the finish line store!

We only had 3 guys this year:

My handsome hubby waiting at the finish line:

3:40ish pm: The whole team runs in with the last runner. Here we are running in (kids in tow).

You can pick me out holding Ethan (he wasn't keeping up on his own). My nephew James is running on the left in the white shirt.


Finish line pictures! They have a professional hired by Ragnar taking pictures, but those haven't been released yet, as far as I know, so I'm extra glad Lisa was there to take pictures!

Van 1! The guys drove down from Utah to run this race, I ran pregnant and coughing, another runner was recovering from the flu, one had a recent knee injury, and one still had a nursing baby at home, so, yeah, we're rock stars! :) Oh, and we ran 110 miles of the race.


And a few of the many portraits Lisa took of me.




This is the official Ragnar van. They have every team take a picture in front of it.

During my last leg of the race I was thinking, "why do I do this again?", but it is such a fun race and I hope to do it again many times in the future, hopefully in other locations as well!